They waited for her to come in for a couple hours, discussing different things about the town, recruitment and how to announce to the millions in the safe zone that he was a Demi-god. They couldn’t just make those claims while trying to find people to join, everyone would think they were crazy or just gullible and easy to take advantage of. Eli had remembered something from when Stevens had told him about the other safe zone that had been to and came up with a plan that was just as crazy as his usual plans. It also promised to create more problems than it solved like most of his other plans, but despite this, the three agreed to do it tomorrow.

  After they had agreed on that, Bethany left to go find her to make sure she was ok, Tara looked at Eli expectantly since they were alone, but he was deep in thought about something else that seemed to be itching at the edge of his mind.

  “Why don’t we go lay down, you seem to have something on your mind and maybe we can work it out in our room… our bedroom.” Tara said, hoping that the hint would sink in.

  It didn’t, he got up and laid in bed with her but was just staring at the ceiling. He had that distant look in his eyes that people get when they are deep in thought and not actually seeing what they are looking at. Tara decided to be patient, she stripped down to nothing, then stripped Eli down to nothing and she lay next to him with her head on his shoulder and half her body draped over his. The thing that was keeping Eli so focused was that while waiting for Audrey, he reached for his connection to the town and was confused at what he found. He had magically claimed this land, much like how a lord could claim space in a safe zone, but his connection was stronger but over a smaller area. Claiming space in a safe zone could mean miles of land, whereas he just had this small town.

  The reason he was confused was that it was still drawing in magic, at first it was the magic from the volcano eruption but now it was from somewhere deep underground. What he couldn’t figure out was why. He could feel the intent from the town's magic because he was linked to it, and it seemed to want to grow. Not necessarily bigger, but more, like it was trying to reach some level of power. The only thing he could think of was that it was trying to match him and his newly acquired transcendent status, or semi-transcedent anyways. Ever since he arrived it stopped growing and seems to be waiting for him to give it instructions, the down side is it is still gathering power. He wasn’t sure how long he had until the power had to be used, but it felt like it was probably a day or so, maybe two.

  He wanted to get up and sit on his meditation platform but he was afraid that if he did it would force him to start making decisions and wouldn’t let him up until they were made. He didn’t really care much as long as the place was safe for his people, but he did want to ask Bethany and Tara’s opinions first. They would likely want to have some input on how their home was designed. He felt like there was an image in the back of his mind about what to do but he couldn’t place it. Like one of those fuzzy pictures you have to squint at in order to see the hidden picture. Eli tried to mentally squint at his subconscious, but that had a completely different effect, and it felt dangerous.

  Eli was in a blank space, there were stars and a sun, but no planets or anything else. Light was jumping from star to star like electricity and the sun was very bright but he could see to its center and that's when he knew where he was. He was in a metaphorical place between his mind and his soul, and seeing as how this was the place he was mentally squinting at, it made sense to him. He spent some time looking around, noticing as many details as he could in case that became important later, there were black hole looking objects orbiting the sun. He could just barely see them, but when he noticed them he reached out to inspect them magically, and to his surprise, the reaching out came from the sun, not his body inside the space.

  This allowed him to know what they were, they were his connections to other people. Focusing on the sensation of reaching out and how the connection felt he could tell who they were. The information he got back was alarming, causing his imaginary body and his soul sun to recoil. He had basically reached into those peoples' space like the one he was in now and could essentially spy on their thoughts, and with the power disparity, it felt like he could influence them. He took a deep breath and calmed his mind, his magic, and his soul, everything seemed to settle down and that's when he remembered why he was here. There was an image of what to make the town into somewhere in this place.

  Now that he was inside, he could tell that the image he was looking for came from the system, at least partly. Like the system suggested it to his soul and his soul took the suggestion and spit out the image. The strange part was that he could feel it, but not see it, which was getting really frustrating since he was in his own mind. After what felt like a half an hour he got frustrated and stopped moving around. While just standing there, metaphorically speaking, he thought about something else to distract himself. He came up with a great idea for the necklace that he wanted, at least what he wanted it to look like anyways and it appeared in front of him. It wasn’t solid, just an image, so he thought of an image box to keep it in and one appeared, he went to put it inside and there was the image he had been looking for.

  It was magnificently done, like a painting that would be under glass in a museum, he had no idea his soul was so artistic. It was going to be hard to describe this to Bethany and Tara, so he thought that maybe he could just send copies of it to them through their connection. He was hoping this wouldn’t give them a seizure or anything so he took a copy and slowly let it float to each of their black holes and they sucked it in and it vanished. Now that he had something to use to compare sizes, Bethany's connection was massive compared to Tara, if he had to guess it would be at least 100 times bigger. He thought they would be different but this was a massive difference, no wonder Bethany seemed like she could copy some of his power.

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  Finished with what he was doing, he decided to leave this metaphoric place and return to his body and Tara. Thankfully, she wasn’t twitching on the ground while foaming at the mouth, instead she was looking at him with pure and intense awe and wonder with a tear rolling down her cheek. He put his hand on her cheek and wiped the tear away.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  She shook her head, gaining clarity in her eyes, “Wrong?” she yelled. “There’s nothing wrong, what was that thing I felt you pass to me through our connection?”

  “You couldn’t see it?”

  “See it?... I was there, like I had been teleported inside the most beautiful painting ever to exist. I could feel you in every object and in every color, the sensations were completely overwhelming, we weren’t even having sex but it felt like I climaxed something fierce.”

  They both looked down and could clearly see that she had, and not a little. They looked back into each other’s eyes.

  “So the image I sent is what I was thinking for the town but I wanted to get your opi…” Eli said, but was cut-off with a kiss from Tara. It was a deep kiss that quickly led their naked bodies to be tangled with each other.

  A while later they heard a yell, a thud, and a loud frantic, almost manic sounding shriek, “AAAASH!” Bethany yelled. They were just holding one another now, and they knew who it was.

  “You sent that to her too?” Tara asked, she was trying to look shocked and jealous but she couldn’t hide the smile on her face.

  “Well, yeah, I wanted to get both of your opinions on the plans for the town before I just started flinging magic around.” Toward the end of that sentence, Eli got a mischievous look on his face.

  “That better not be what you call our lovemaking.” she admonished.

  Before either of them could get another word in there was a loud banging on the wall and the roots that were, at the moment, trying to be a door despite two spears sticking through them. He let the roots and vines fall away and she burst in, breathing heavy and completely naked, but with a spear still in her hand.

  “Why would you send me something like that without warning?” Bethany asked, her arms and legs were a little shaky and she didn’t seem to be able to catch her breath.

  “I didn’t know it was going to do that, I just wanted to share an image with you.” Eli said. Tara knew that Bethany would only be able to hold herself for so long so she went to the bathing pond and pulled the curtain. The sounds of Bethany’s heavy breathing faded away as she lay in the water and her ears went below the surface. She doubted it would block all the noise of what was about to happen, but it was better than nothing.

  “So, you sent me an image, and experiencing it made ‘that’ happen to me?” Bethany asked, pointing her spear in the direction she had come from.

  “What happened?”

  Skipping the details, Bethany explained that she had found Audrey and they were talking in a field halfway between Crater Town and the safe zones main city, when she was hit with a “Lightning bolt of orgasms to her soul”. Then there was a magical explosion of purple lighting that burned the ground around her and her clothes.

  “I would be absolutely attacking you right now, but it took a lot out of me. I don't think I have the strength to force myself on you.” Bethany finished as she sat down, or at least, she was about to sit down when Eli snapped his fingers and she blinked into his arms facing him. He kissed her and was holding her tight enough that her feet weren’t touching the ground.

  “I would apologize, but for some reason it feels like I may have accidentally done this on purpose. Also, being a Demi-God now, I feel like apologizing for making women horny sets a bad precedent.” Eli said with a shit-eating-grin on his face. Then he walked her over to the bed, which had been cleaned and had fresh moss on it, all done with a thought from him.

  “You…” Bethany struggled to find the words, “You are…” She paused and sighed. “Who am I kidding, that was the perfect line.” She said as he laid her in bed and crawled on top of her kissing her neck and collar bone. She grabbed a handful of hair in each hand and pulled hard, she looked him dead in the eye and with all the determination and seriousness that she could muster said, “Don’t stop until I pass out!”

  Another ‘a while’ later and the three of them were sleeping when suddenly Bethany sat bolt upright, “Audrey!”

  “What?” Eli and Tara asked.

  “I forgot to tell you why she didn’t come in to talk.”

  “Ok, so tell us now.” Tara said.

  “It’s a little complicated, but she has had some bad experiences with religion in the past. Apparently her parents were in a cult when she was young and things didn’t go well. They got out when her parents realized she was a genius and they could cash in on her brilliance. Basically every adult in this kid's life just wanted something from her or to use her. Until captain god-pants over here treated her like he owed her instead of the other way around. But now she is having flashbacks to some of the cult stuff, especially since he called himself a demi-god.”

  Tara looked right at Eli, “You stay out of this and away from her, she clearly has a dependent personality so I will talk to her before she ends up following some abuser.”

  “I am totally fine staying out of this, and that does make sense, she did seem a little clingy.”

  “Ya think?” Bethany said, but then quickly followed it with, “but we shouldn’t just leave her to the wolves.”

  “I’ll stay here and remodel the town, you guys go whatever it is you want to do…” Eli trailed off since both of them were looking at him as if giving them a command was a bad idea. He knew they would do it, but he had to tread lightly since he wanted their relationship to stay light and fun. If he started barking orders, they would do what he asked, but he would lose them as friends and right now it was more this way.